What makes a Hero
by Siachi
Summary: In a time of Galbadian decline a lone sergeant and her squad find themselves pitched against SeeD trained insurgents. Surrounded and cut off, with an idiot commander and persistant rummours of a SeeD presence on the field, will they make it to Deling?
1. It Begins

The sun was setting when the plane flew overhead, a rosy glow spilling out over a cloudy sky. The craft's passing was silent, unnoticed by human and radar alike. But then that had been what its designers had intended when they had built it, and a thing may only do what is in its nature.

The hours passed. The plane journeyed on. Beneath it ocean gave way to fields, fields to desert and desert to mountains. Guided by an invisible light, it flew unerringly towards the hand which held the beam. Over a towering mountain peak, indistinguishable from the hundreds of others surrounding it, a door was slid back. Noiselessly its cargo spilt out, blackened parachutes invisible against the darkness. Silently they drifted towards the earth and landed gently upon the packed earth.

Three shapes swiftly unfolded themselves. Within minutes their dell was filled with others, guides mingling with the new arrivals, mumbling with them. The equipment was hastily gathered up, the 'chutes folded up and stored away. An order was hissed, and they began their trek, leaving the mountain again deserted except for a solitary volunteer charged with destroying all trace of their passing. Overhead SEED flight AZ 2490-NT 2 cruised silently on, its mission complete.

Later Galbadian Military Intelligence would review the entire satellite footage of the plane's unscheduled flight through Galbadia's airspace, but would see neither the drop nor it's conclusion on the ground. Wearily, they would curse both the Estarian cloaking technology worn by the SEEDs and the native insurgent's formidable illusion skills. Then they would begin the long hard search of tens of thousands of square miles of desolate terrain, trying to work out where Military Commander of Balamb Garden and Director of Combat Operations Squall Leonheart, Director of Commando and Insurgency Operations Lieutenant-Colonel Nida and Chief Medical Officer (Combat injury specialist) Doctor Aikka Krushchec had landed, and more importantly, just what in the Nine Hells they thought they where doing on the inside of one of Galbadia's hottest EZs [Term: Emergency Zone].

* * *

The dust kicked up by our column as we march towards our assigned trenches stings the back of my already parched throat. The heat in this country is really filthy. It sucks the moisture right out of the body within seconds, sending it up into the air. Trying to draw each breath is like inhaling under water. I will kill for a breath of smoggy Deling air. It's so cool and crisp, you'd want to swirl it around your lungs until all the oxygen had been wrung out of it rather then go back to the laborious panting that follows me around as I struggle forwards in my body armour.

Despite the heat I glance around me constantly, uneasily. You can never tell with the skinnies, where or when they'll turn up, and I'm section point. Plus only constant searching keeps you alive through your trip out here and I've only got ten days of my Time left. Hyn's left ball if I'm going home in bag after everything this place has put me through.

Of course, all I see as my gaze wanders over this desert is rocks. Big rocks. Small rocks. Heaps of rocks. All I can ever see here is rocks. I can't get over the surge of hate I feel at the sight of them. When I get home I'm sticking to green places, and if I ever see another damn rock again without any moss on I'll scream. Moss makes all the difference. Moss is alive. Maybe being in a green place will sooth me. Cover the bare walls of my psyche with something cool. Shut out the memories.

If the cam cord in my head ever shuts down when I finally get back, I hope that everything inside my head that it has so faithfully recorded, every scene, every emotion and every thought follows it into oblivion. Even now, as I walk along with my bowls churning, my conscious mind scanning every ridgeline, every fold in the earth for Johnny, I can feel them stacked up behind my eyes like so much unprocessed data. They're making my temples throb.

I am pulled from my reverie as Blue taps me on my shoulder. I'd heard the crunch of her boots on the gravel, but even so I am thankful that Heartbreaker's safety is on. Hyn bless column rules. Twitchy nerves mean twitchy triggers.

"Gods damn it Blue, I've told you before about sneaking up on me like that. One day your ass will grass."

"Well you've only got ten days to try, bitch!" she laughs back.

Blue [_person: at 19 she is my age. Her real name is Jenna Troy. To her close friends she is Blue, for the colour of her armour. To the grunts here she is sarge. The beloved momma who's going to ship them all home, and doesn't care if she's got to bust their ass a few times to do it. She's old around the eyes, like all of us here. I've known her since before my first tour out here when we where the only two fems in the outfit, and we've been together ever since._] leans close to my ear as we walk along. She keeps behind me so she doesn't block my line of sight.

"Time to wake up anyway Sash, the Fuckwit wants to see us."

I roll my eyes skyward, feeling a surge of irritation at the mention of our beloved commanding officer. The throbbing behind my eyes picks up a beat.

As we trudge along together I call back to my young corporal, "Val, take point and look after the section. Sergeant Troy and I are going forward to talk to the Lieutenant."

Val Dana [_person: even at 17 she has changed from a tense and terrified kid I'd known at the start of this tour into a silent, staring soldier. She has a terror of the night- not darkness exactly, but night time, especially the sounds. Insanely brave during the day she will do everything possible be back at base by sundown. To my knowledge she has never taken a night patrol, leading to her nickname 'Daytripper'. Like all of them, she has become used to responding to my voice immediately._] gives me a short nod of acknowledgment and steps swiftly into my place, her eyes never breaking their pattern. I feel a strange surge of maternal pride in her, and the professional satisfaction of a job well done. I have helped to create a strange killer, young and old, innocent and wise, victim and survivor.

"What are you smiling about Sasha?" asks Blue, slightly worried by my sudden smirk.

"Just thinking there's a lot you don't learn about this job in camp," I tell her easily, "What does the Fuckwit want this time?"

Some new insanity I am sure. I fiddle with Heartbreaker's safety idly, fantasizing about being able to blow the bastard away in some hidden spot away from his autobot toys that he always has hanging around. I'm enjoying it so much I totally miss Blue's reply and have to ask her to repeat herself.

"I said, he didn't say. He just told me to fetch you and Caster. Said he needed to speak to the 'most experienced troopers in his unit about our upcoming forward manoeuvres'. Jerk," she says contemptuously.

I have a sinking feeling in my stomach. My temples are still throbbing. Then Caster is walking towards us, smiling blankly at Blue as she calls his name.

[_Person: Caster Pollack is sergeant of the platoon's Long Range Patrol section (Lurps). He's our adopted little brother, who latched onto us back at boot camp as the only ones in the platoon who didn't relentlessly bully him. He was a silly bookish grunt back then, who could come out with the square root of 27 from his head, but whose boot laces we'd have to tie properly. It's because of him we volunteered for another tour here, this time as NCOs. Caster has flipped since he came here. He is totally silent with everybody except us, to whom he speaks perfectly normally. Everybody else gets sign language or a scrap of parchment. He refuses to wear a helmet, and has grown his hair long, braiding it intricately with pieces of ratty string, elastic bands and hair clips he's scrounged at base. The only thing he keeps from his former existence is a small pair of reading glasses perched ridiculously on his nose all day._

_Sometimes on patrol he'll stand for hours without moving, even blinking. He's become one of Third Army's most prolific killers. Surprisingly his section follows him everywhere. Grunts always stick to the one person in their outfit blessed with the luck of the Gods. The miracle man, survivor against incalculable odds. The closer you are to them the less likely you'll be killed. Caster has had two miracles. One time his entire patrol was wiped out by Johnny except him. He lay under his friends' bodies while they cut ears off as souvenirs and giggled to each other. The second time he was sleeping in his cot at LZ [Landing Zone] Garden when the skinnies lobbed a mortar round into his tent. Every soldier in the tent was killed, torn apart by shrapnel, except Caster, whose cot wasn't even touched. After waking up in a charnel house, that was pretty much it for Caster. After that the only place left for him was the Lurps._]

"Hey Caster," I call to him, and get a quick smile to scurry across his normally closed face, as if it's scared to be caught there.

Without saying another word he falls in between us, and the posse is complete and we are walking on in comfortable silence the way it's always been since we were thrown together, survivors clinging together for comfort in this strange ocean.

* * *


	2. Under New Orders

Up ahead the head of our column has finally hit its designated spot. Exhausted as they are by the long march from the Ornithropters, the grunts are nevertheless digging out shallow trenches, piling up rocks for a loose wall and rolling out the bundles of razor wire we've dragged with us. It's become second nature. I can't feel safe until my hole is dug either. Para-magic like Shell and Protect just doesn't compete with three feet of solid rock to dive behind.

We jump across the trench and walk over to where the Fuckwit is standing at the crest of the ridge, against the sun, as if daring a sniper to try to blow him away. As usual the Lieutenant is very easy to spot, surrounded by his three autobot toys. I feel the familiar frustration burn in me when I see him. If only he'd step away from those infernal machines…

[_Person: Lieutenant Richard Merton aka 'the Fuckwit' is my direct commanding officer. At 26 he is the 'old man' of the platoon and proud of it. He's a star graduate of Galbadia Garden, third in his class, one of the last before the Sorceress stole that from us as well as our self-respect and the youth of my generation. Before he joined us in our second tour of EZ 6 he'd already spent a year attached to 42nd Commando, somewhere civilised where they phone warnings before bombings. To be honest I'd given up listening by that point._

_The Fuckwit is a handsome man, medium height and build, cropped black hair and a charming open smile he flashes about liberally. He looks like he belongs on the front one of those men's health mags with a towel round his ass. Unfortunately he's here instead. The Lieutenant's old man is ex-military and one of the new Speakers down in Deling. Think General Caraway, with a serious case of religion._

_The Fuckwit is completely dominated by the old-timer. He's desperate to earn his father's respect, and growing up under the old man's shadow has given him one hell of an inferiority complex. He hides these behind a show of cocksure arrogance and overconfidence in his own opinions. He can't countenance dissent, treating it as open rebellion, and punishes excessively. He's more afraid of appearing afraid then the fear that makes you kiss the ground every time the shooting starts._

_The Fuckwit managed to miss the Straits War, saw no action in the scuffles ignited by President Deling the elder and finished by Sorceresses Edea and Adel, and was too young for the first Sorceress War. He was running short of wars to prove himself in. The flames of conflagration that have wracked this part of the world for decades are dying to embers at last. Galbadia has collapsed westwards over the last seven years as Dollet, Winhill and Timber have all reclaimed what is theirs. Now we're trapped in the desert between the paradise we've lost on the east coast, and one we're trying to hold together in the west. The desert and mountain hell we've sent our political prisoners to for the last hundred and ten years- District D. Officially the place has no more title then this. The peoples who live here disagree, and they where willing to start a war over it. So it's here, to the last place on the planet you'd want to be, with the last war you'd want to be in, that the Fuckwit volunteered to come, and his daddy pulled the strings for him. Officers are queuing up to grab experience here, before the new civilian government manages to extract us from this piece of imperial wreckage. War experience will be a valuable career asset in a peace time force, and the Fuckwit fully intends to stand for Speaker with the reputation of a war hero._]

We are the last to reach the Lieutenant. The sergeants of the first and second sections, Motor-mouth and 'gladly men', have already arrived. The Fuckwit smiles when he sees us and waves excitedly. The suspicion that has been growing in my mind as we walked along is confirmed at the sight of him. He is beaming to the world in general, like a little boy who has been given an unexpected treat and allowed out to play. The Lieutenant loves combat. It allows him to work out all those little frustrations he has to keep in check the rest of the time. It's confirmed as we jump down into the trench.

Unable to repress his glee, he calls out "Sergeant Troy! All of you! Great news! This company's been selected for CP [Term: Combat Patrol. Generally an aggressive large- scale patrol carried out in the hope of luring the enemy to attack it.] tomorrow. We're to sweep seven klicks out to 841 [Object: Hill 841- the Galbadian Army named its hills by their height in yards] and investigate activity registered on the sensor probes there. Better get the troops prepared. It'll be a long walk!"

And with this he jumps out of the trench and strides off to supervise the erection of his tent, leaving Motor-mouth [person: Coral Streader, aka Motor-mouth, is sergeant of the first section of our platoon. She's an ex-publisher, who as part of her old duties was paid by the minute during phone calls. Even today she can't stop her endless chatter, hence the nickname.] to bring us up to speed on marching order, ETD [Term: Estimated Time of Departure.], supplies and all the vital wealth of detail that even the smallest military expedition depends on.

* * *

A shining bar of light begins to appear in the east, as the sun creeps up over the horizon. I pull my helmet on, my breath coming out in white puffs in the freezing morning. No matter, it'll soon be hot enough. I check my gauntlets are securely fastened one last time and begin marshalling the troops into some sort of marching order.

Inside the camp's trench along side me are one hundred and twenty men and women of the 3rd battalion/1st Belurevian Regiment (the Lions). They stand about yawning, flapping their arms in the morning chill and fiddling with their armour. No one is talking. Everyone is still blinking blearily at our 6.00 hour wake-up call. It's meant only six hours sleep for us, but Captain Freeman knows her country. She wants to push on quickly in the cool of the morning and rest the troops at midday. This makes perfect sense, and I will be very grateful this afternoon that somebody in charge knew what they where about, but right now I'm forced to draw comfort from the fact that we're not alone in the morning misery. 'C' company is five hundred yards to our left [Author's note: the characters in this fic have a depressing habit of flitting between metric and imperial, depending on which sounds right. Blame the fucked-up education system in this country that teaches us both systems.], breaking out its packs for a patrol into the buffs to the east of the LZ.

Altogether there are six companies spreading out in a fan-shape, and marching out towards the horizon. Six thin columns going to re-lay our sensors and try to tempt Johnny out of his hiding places to where our planes and 'thropters can make a mess of him, and even drop the 1st and 2nd Para on him if he attacks the main camp.

Our own beloved platoon leader is now striding up and down ordering everyone out of the trench and into marching order. We're slightly luckier then most of the companies of grunts- our column is being supported not only by the Fuckwit's three aging G1M 47Ns but also by three massive Iron Giants, now towering over sections two and three.

"Looks like a good day for you lot after all," I remark more cheerfully to my closest squad, "Those 'bots coming with us over there are Iron Giants."

Vincono, the kid next to me, just gives me a blank look. I can't see the other's expressions under their helmets but I'm willing to bet a bent gil coin against a month's pay that they're identical to Vincono's. Sighing inwardly, I raise my voice and prepare to give a lecture about the combat qualities of the Iron Giant.

"Gather round now people! This is Auntie Sasha's advice to all you grunts here about those big metal mothers over there! They're called Iron Giants, and they're basically a heavy assault 'bot. They've no firepower or magic at all, so don't go looking to them for covering fire, but these beasts inspire pure, unadulterated terror in lovely Johnny. He thinks that the Giants are animated by the trapped spirits of dead Knights and spares no effort to try to 'release' the 'trapped spirit' before its vengeful presence reaches his lines with those big nasty swords you can see them all carrying. Very useful in a scrap that. Unless you happen to be standing next to one when everything breaks out of course! If it comes to a fight today, get behind them. They'll take the flak for you, and act as mobile cover when we break out. Everyone got that?"

With a chorus of 'ayes' behind me, I clamber out of the trench and the grunts scramble out after me. We line up and I sort them in three loosely bunched groups. They fall in quickly through long practice, but I still give them the same pep talk that I have always done. Smiling at myself, I begin the ritual words I always use before we set off on a patrol. Now, when I can't protect them anymore, these parting words release them to their fates with a last paternalistic blessing. Well, it's worked for the last year, and I love a lucky good luck ritual.

"Stay grouped loosely in your squads! You'll present a smaller target that way, then as a lovely long line for Johnny to rake with his machine guns. Make sure you don't all get bunched together either though. I don't want to have to right nine letters home to your mommas telling them you all trod on the same mine. My wrist'd never recover."

There are the usual jeers from the squadies. The section in front of us has begun to set off, so I quickly complete the speech.

"All right everybody, this is it. Good hunting! Remember, I'm only standing a free round for people who survive their tour, and you've all only got ten days to go. I don't want any heroes! What is heroism?"

"Nature's way of keeping the coffin industry busy!" they chorus.

I turn away now, and run to catch up with Blue and Caster who is hanging around near the v-formation of his Lurp section. As I pass him, Vincono sees who I am heading towards and scowls resentfully.

"Trust the Sarge to keep Lucky Guy all to herself," he murmurs snidely to his squad mate.

"Hey Vin, no worries man, ain't no guy lucky three times," the boy next to him says sagely.

For no reason, these last words strike me to the quick, perhaps because they ring so ominously in my mind.

I turn, and say more sharply then I meant to "Move it you two!"

* * *


	3. A Sense of Forboding

Hi Ali, just figured how to reply to reviews on this fic. Unfortunatly this one was mostly written or laid out in my head before I posted. There deliberatly isn't much direct participation by any of the Orphanage gang. Even Squall only gets to strut his stuff at the end. Keep reading though as I am starting to write Storm in the Sword Soul, a fic set just after time compression from Siefer's POV, set in this world.

The sun is climbing ever higher in the sky as we tramp further and further away from the regiment's LZ. The heat begins to soar and my sight behind the helmet's visor becomes fogged as my sweat evaporates from my body then condenses on the cool transparent plastic. Even so I don't remove the helmet. Body armour is a wonderful protector, capable of stopping a bullet from an assault rifle or even a light machine gun. Its development a generation ago, together with the beginning of widespread para-magical combat training effectively ended the reign of the firearm as the infantryman's primary weapon. On the battlefield today they survive mainly as combi-weapons such as our gunblades and of course the ubiquitous sniper rifle. I know snipers thrive out here. In my armour I'm fairly safe. Only my lower face is exposed to the sniper's scope. But it's an easy mistake in this heat for a soldier to remove their helmet or loosen their armour and then... I remember the face of my squad's corporal disintegrating in a welter of blood and bone right in front of me three weeks into my first tour and try not to shudder.

I give myself a mental shake, determined to throw off the pessimism that is colouring my thoughts. Happily we're about seven klicks out now, quick progress. Caster's Lurps have been sweeping the ground ahead of us for traps or unexploded ordinance from our beloved airforce, but the trails we have followed have all be clean so far. I don't have to wait long for something else to be cheerful about either. The Lieutenant's voice crackles over the platoon's satlink ordering a halt for a little rest.

[Object: _Satlink. At the start of the first Sorceress War Esthar deployed a device known as the Universal Spectrum Jammer. It was as if a nuclear device had been detonated in the stratosphere. Across the world communications crashed, and those that survived, basically military channels, were severely disrupted. The malignant machine's secondary function was to jam all terrestrial radio and television bands with a wall of electronic 'white noise'._

_The use of the Jammer, indeed the Sorceress War itself, brought about a revolution in communications. In the military sphere the old short wave radio kits used in the field where swiftly replaced by what was effectively a jerry-rigged mobile phone. This method relied upon using the eighty strong network of satellites built up by the Galbadian Army. Unlike civilians, who for the next two years where again reliant on the letter, these satellites where were well shielded._

_Although the Jammer was switched off after Esthar withdrew behind its technological barriers the effects it had unleashed at the start of the war continued to scramble the analogue spectrum for a decade afterwards. Civilians downloaded their films and programs from the planetary network, known simply as the 'net'. They spoke or typed into public transmitters or portable video phones that beamed their calls up to shielded satellite for transmission. Television was dead. Radio evolved into digital radio, where the broader spectrum meant clear channels, but it remained strictly in the providence of wealthy geeks. The short-wave radio has made a come-back in military circles for its cheapness and durability, but the 1st Belurevian is not amongst those outfits that had refitted their helmets with the device._]

Thankfully I struggle into the shade of a rocky cliff bottom and shrug off my pack. Around me the others are doing the same while Captain Freeman's platoon takes up sentry positions. They don't look to happy about that, but what the hells, this time it's our turn first, and I can get a catnap. I prod my section to get our stove set up and order Stebbados to get his helmet back on, and then I lean slowly back against the cool stone of the cliff with a sigh of relief. I'm just beginning to doze peacefully off and catch up with some missed sleep when the helmet emits a high pitched whine right beside my left ear. It's the satlink alerting me to an incoming call. But it's not the inter-section link, the amber light warns me its an officer calling. Cursing the gods I crank up the volume.

"Hello? Hello? Sergeant, are you there?" rings accusingly in my ear.

Trying not to wince as I recognise the impeccably cultured accent of the Fuckwit, our resident Prima Donna, I squeak out "Yessir! Trouble with the reception sir!"

This seems to mollify the voice at the other end of the line. It looses its strident tone and instead resumes speaking with the suppressed excitement I dread.

"We've had an interesting development, Bennett! The Lurps have found tracks near some of our sensors. They're fresh ones too. Four people. Sergeant Pollack has requested a squad come up and investigate with them. Unfortunately I'm stuck here. Captain Freeman has ordered me to supervise some preliminary defences now we know there might be hostiles here. You're my most experienced officer and you've worked closely with Sergeant Pollack before. Go grab a couple of troopers and get me a prisoner. Should make this miserable patrol worthwhile, especially if we can squeeze the prisoner to tell us where the rest of the rats are hiding. Merton out."

Click.

Fury bubbles up in me at this casual dismissal. Clenching my fists I look up at the sky where the smug gits we call gods look on and condemn me to endlessly wander at the whim of an insecure little tyrant. My lack of sleep and my hatred of the Lieutenant combine to spill over at last.

"Buggerasslovingcuntlickingdickhead-!"

"Sasha are you alright?"

It's Blue. She comes over to me looking worried. It wouldn't be the first time a soldier has cracked under the strain of constant stress in enemy country. Weigh down a mind long enough and it sinks. Around us the soldiers of our two sections are openly staring at me. Rikka, Stebbados's squadmate rocks back and forth hugging her knees to her chest and rocking back and forth, crying. Shouting always sets her off that way. Stebbados has his arm round her shoulder and is glaring at me. Usually the big lunk and his cousin bicker constantly, but fight with one and you've always got the pair to deal with.

My temper drains away, and my cheeks flush slightly. I half turn away from the others and pull Blue along with me. We hunker down on the dirt, heads close together so we can whisper without being overheard. She knows I have something to bad to relate. As I relate what the Fuckwit ordered her expression changes from concern to incredulousness to fear and exasperation.

Asking grunts with ten days Time to go to break with the limited safety of the patrol and go trekking alone across strange country will not be popular. Nobody wants to risk their neck now with home so close. People with so little Time won't volunteer, there's not even the old carrot that they might be wounded and sent home early. All we've got left is the stick, court martial- and they're leaving the army in ten days!

Blue sucks in a breath and chews her lip.

"How many are there?" she asks.

"The Fuckwit said there where four sets of tracks," I answer cautiously.

We both know the tribesmen's habit of luring outfits into ambushes with a bit of tempting bait.

"Take two squads," she says with an undertone of resignation, "One from each of our sections. With us, Caster and the Lurps that'll reassure them. Fifteen against four is good odds. Chances are with that many they'll hear you coming and break off with out a fight. If it is an ambush Caster'll spot the signs- they'll go out too straight for starters. We head out for half an hour then turn back. If it's a trap or they're too far out we come back and say they're just a bunch of goat herders."

I smile my appreciation of her cunning.

"The Lieutenant will be right in the middle of organising the watch change in an hour," I muse out loud, "And three sergeants all together in their own little squad, and all the grunts from different sections and not knowing each other. Now that's just down right sneaky."

Blue rises off her haunches. She gives me the first real grin I've seen since we left camp this morning and claps me on the shoulder.

"Smart thinking, girl. You'll make a sergeant yet. Now go and pick your squad and I'll fetch mine."

I turn towards my section. All three squads are watching me, eyes veiled, tense. They saw my outburst, and the way Blue and I have been conniving together. Squadmates sit silently, hunched together. They sense something's coming. A thought strikes me. A grunt relies most closely on his two squadmates. Separate the squad and you split them into individuals. Mix with stranger with stranger in an ad-hoc squad and you place each individual with a series of unknowns. It reduces their cohesion as a fighting formation, but faced with a united squad of officers the individuals are much less likely to simply assassinate their officers.

I scan the three squads under my command.

"Vincono, Daytripper, Half-pint, pack up your stuff. The Lieutenant wants us to go and question some goat-herders about PLF movements in this area. Don't worry. Section II, the Lurps and your loving sergeants will all be with you."

Val simply stands up and begins gathering her gear together. As usual my corporal is uncomplaining and utterly dependable. Rikka and Stebbados are huddled together. They will talk and bicker and dally, but she will eventually pack. She's too fearful of the consequences of disobeying an order outside the field. She was quite timid, once, before this place.

[_Person: Vincono, my third choice, watches me angrily. Of the three he is the mostlikely to take matters into his own hands. A fleshy, hairy creature from the shanty towns that have spread around Deling City as ethnic Galbadians flee west, he's become as hardened as they get. He's never really grown up, always a problem with a killer. He denies he is responsible for his own actions. Tormented by dreams of events he firmly believes never happened has soured him beyond his years. He acts with a petulant viciousness towards most people, sulking like a spoilt infant denied a favourite treat. If there's something he wants he tries to grab it, however many times he's been burnt by such actions in the past. He's been formally disciplined no less then thirteen times on his tour here, usually for minor theft. Happily for me his reputation inspires mistrust in most of the rest of the platoon. I'd rather the grunts were watching their own backs then eying mine._]

"Why'd ja pick me Sarge," his voice, full of grievance and the man himself no more then five paces from me. I turn and give him a tired look.

"Well you said you wanted to be near Lucky Guy," I murmur.


	4. An Ill Chance

The impromptu task force stands or sits around the bottom of the dell as Caster shows us the tracks of our insurgents. Caster's Lurps shuffle edgily around off and above to my left, staring intently at the crumbling rock of the slope, doing whatever Lurps do. Caster stands above me on the slope and we shield our eyes for a split second as the sun's glare escapes the wisps of cloud that periodically cover it. When the dazzle behind our eyes has died away I follow Caster mechanically as he takes us up to the smashed sensor. It's a deep-radar scanner, meant to probe for underground tunnels and capable of sensing a human up to thirty feet under the earth. The cords which would have attached the machine to its parachute have been slashed by something sharp. The 'chute itself is missing.

"See, here, where they came past. The scree is indented where they've trodden," says Caster ponderously.

I catch Blue's eye and we both suppress a smile. Even an idiot could see the tracks in the loose pebbles of the bottom of the mountainside. Caster has the usual Lurp failing of pointing out the obvious. But it's tracking the makers of these prints once they'd got onto hard rock that would be the difficult part, and that would be where Lucky Guy's true genius would shine.

"Where do the tracks lead Caster?" asks Blue gently to my little brother.

"They lead over the ridge and down into a gully at the other side," he replies vaguely, apparently fascinated by the interlacing of the rivers of blue crystal run through a large formation heaped at the base of the ridge, where the desert hill became a true mountain. "They go both ways along the gully and there are more along the ridge top. It's probably a roving patrol," he adds in an off hand manner, running one gauntleted hand through his matted hair in silent contemplation.

Blue and I exchange another set of looks, this time worried.

"Caster, where's this outfit's path?" I demand.

"They'll be coming out over there probably," he says gesturing at an overgrown spot on the ridge above us, where four startled turbaned figures are standing, spears held loosely in bony hands.

The camera in my head clicks on as I feel an explosion of adrenaline flood my system and time suddenly takes on a slow, syrupy quality. In slow motion a spear is levelled at me and the metal head vanishes behind the crimson sphere of a _Fira_ blast. It floats so slowly through the air towards me really. Its sulphur smell fills my nostrils though, and my body seems unnaturally sluggish.

Caster was standing to my left. He pivots ever so slowly on the spot, his face coming to face mine, pale, with frightened eyes flashing into my own. A gauntleted arm rises up and a hammer blow to my chest, bruising, is pushing my torso out of the blast's path. His shove launches himself clear too as his left arm rises up, gunblade pointing.

I lose sight of him as the _Fira_ screams past my face. Eyebrows' smouldering in its heat wave, my face is turning towards the ridge-line as I twist my hips and my left hand strikes rock. Right arm rising I hear the first _baaoom_ of his revolver, and Blue's scream as the _Fira_ boils a path of melted armour and charred flesh along her side and up her arched back.

My arm is in place and my _Water_ spell arcs towards the second PLF fighter. Blue bubbles swirling around him he is falling, lungs filled, drowning on dry land. Next to him the caster is jerked back once as Caster's shot strikes, robes billowing, then back and fore like an epileptic puppet as the Lurps and he fire perfectly synchronised. No body armour on that one.

Abruptly I am standing and time rushes forwards. A series of scenes flood my senses, like a succession of still shots _clickclickclick_. The kid from Blue's squad pale on the floor screaming as his blood gushes from a stump of an arm loped clean off by the gunblade of his _Beserk_ comrade now sprawled twitchily on the ground with black Zs pouring from his mouth. The third grunt, frantically scrabbling in her pack for a _Phoenix Down_ that isn't there. The third enemy caster disappearing behind three Fira balls as my squad's spells reduce him to ash. The fourth insurgent cresting the top of the ridge in full flight, never having cast a spell, the Lurps in hot pursuit with gunblades raised.

I look sharply down at Blue. She's rolling slowly on the ground trying to put out the flames out. Plasteel bubbles as it cools, setting in her flesh. Caster is over her though, chanting a _Cura_ spell that will restore her body as if nothing had ever marked it. I leave him to it and sprint over to the dying grunt, ripping the only Phoenix we have with us out of my pack. Skid to a stop next to the tearful grunt. Lift the sheet-white head, force open the jaws with the right hand and dribble the potion down his throat.

The blood coming from his stump floods out anew as the magic starts his heart thumping again. The potion multiplies cells at an incredible rate, filling his body with new blood and re-growing the stump of his arm, which sprouts up before my eyes. As he coughs back to life, alive but hideously weak I finally register the girl in front of me is leaking rivulets of blood down her left leg. A straight slash has been opened in her thigh, shallow, but a dozen inches long. She is looking at me expectantly, but I've no _Cure_ spells drawn. Blue was our primary healer, and I'm full with combat magic.

"Let me see that soldier," I say gently.

She extends her leg, grimacing at the movement.

"You haven't got anything for it have you?" she says hopefully.

"You know the drill," I snap, "Magic saved for serious cases. We've not got many healing spells drawn solider, and they're for the sergeant and your squadmate here."

She looks ready to cry again. There's a definite wobble of the lower lip. Fair enough to be stressed if you've just saved one comrade and subdued another without killing him I suppose.

"Let me show you a trick I picked up off your sergeant," I say, relenting a bit.

The grunt reminds me of Rikka slightly.

Briskly I take out a roll of bandage from the pack and cut off a strip with Heartbreaker.

"You wrap the bandage and tie it round your cut like so," I say in a businesslike tone, demonstrating on my own leg "It's a shallow thing and clean. It should heal straight, but get it looked at when we get back to the LZ. We're going to be walking though, it'll stop it closing properly. You need a pad to soak up the blood. Inserts- Tampons are good. Sanitary towels are better. They're bigger, plus they're designed to be outside."

The grunt gaps at me. Did I just say the 'T' word?

"Well?"

She doesn't meet my gaze.

"It's not the right time sarge," she says, abashed.

Sighing, I reach into the pack and pull out the packet I'd been hording over the last three months. I'd bought them back at base on the black market, from a dodgy quartermaster. Proper commercial pads, not the _crap_ the army hands out. I'd bought three packets and they'd cost me a week's salary. This was my last one. I open it and hand one over, gloomily anticipating the pain to come. The damn army things feel like sandpaper.

As the grunt holds the pad in place I tie the bandage into place and stand up. The Lurps are back, dragging a snoozing and trussed captive across the middle one's shoulders. Blue is upright and casting a _Cure_ over her reborn grunt, as though she had never had her flesh charred to the bone. She gives me a wink and I straighten my shoulders purposely while grinning tiredly back. We both feel it. The aftermath of any crisis. The heightening of the senses, the sheer happiness that you are alive and in one piece especially when so many others aren't. Each breath is savoured, but you hold your weapon close all the same. Part of you can't, will never, believe the danger is over.


	5. Shot in the Dark

Hi Thorn, thanks for the lovely review. It inpsired me to knock this chapter out early. It's good to see people are out there!

I watch silently as the engineering team crouch around the detonator. The pad is compressed and I hear the roar of the earth even through the soundproof earphones I've been issued. Dirt fountains up into the sky and arcs gracelessly to earth, great brown clods of it, mixed with shards of rock. A new foxhole has just been built.

I watch the scurrying of the engineers with a jaun eye. It's been six hours since we reached the LZ again, without incident. Four of the other companies out had had contacts with Johnny too, and six skinnies, including a commander of some sort, where herded off to the interrogation tent, kept isolated from the rest of the camp.

Whatever the skinnies told Command, it sure set the cat amongst the Chocobos. They shrank back our perimeter, halving the 'box' we're defending, and set the engineering battalion to blasting new foxholes and strengthening the dug-outs at the double. They've run out miles of wire and laid mines. The engineers have even emplaced our 155mm cannons and chain guns, and there are mutterings that the Colonel is having the regiment's SAM 08G company taken out of hibernation.

The engineers are all pale and drawn and the officers move about thin-lipped. The grunts are restless. Wild rumours about what lieutenant so-and-so let slip and what Captain whats-her-name reckons are flying all over camp. Fights keep flaring then dying down as soldiers run out of steam and go back to waiting. The pressure is worst for the sergeants. We've got to keep order amongst the grunts while being kept in the dark ourselves, trusted by neither grunts nor officers. Typically therefore, I am huddled with Blue and Caster, in a little hole out of the way somewhere, and we are each drawing comfort from the presence of the others.

[_Term: Box, slang word for regimental camp or LZ._]

No one knows what it is the Colonel is so worried about, but the fact we've gone from sweeping search-and-destroy patrols to all out defence means even the dimmest grunt knows that Johnny must be all through these mountains. The brighter grunts have gone into an overdrive of speculation; about us and the Fourth and Tenth to the north being used as bait, to temp Johnny out of his networks of tunnels to where General Bell can drop his paratroopers and bombs on them to his heart's content. Others reckon that the skinnies wouldn't have the strength to break our camp, but that they've hired a SEED company. Other favourites include either the Free Republic of Winhill or the Eco-Confederation of Timber secretly deploying regulars in these mountains disguised as skinnies, or that Esthar has given the skinnies the Bomb, and the Colonel has stopped patrols to avoid stirring him up.

The first artillery shell screams in just as darkness falls, almost unheard under the roar of digging equipment and the crump of the excavation blasts. The detonation as it strikes a petrol dump shakes the camp and lights up the whole 'box'. Screams are lost behind the roar of the flame as it eats skywards. We can hear the odd whining noise of more shells incoming. Like Blue and Caster, I'm thrown violently to the earth floor of the trench as one explodes a mere thirty yards away. Unlike on the web shows there is no fancy spurt of flame, just earth fountaining up with a rumbling roar as though the earth itself is wounded. I reel upright in total shock, in a world once again gone mad. My shoulder hurts like blazes and I'm seeing in triple vision after my head slammed off the wooden floor of the trench.

Blue is hauling me towards her, mouthing the words of a _cure_ spell. It's healing warm seeps through me numbing my shoulder and clearing my head like a torrent of icy water. Blue slaps me hard. Now it is my cheek that is numbed.

"How many fingers am I holding up?" she yells over the cacophony of noise.

"Four," I say, looking round her blearily at the night sky.

Under the crystal desert sky with its frozen perfection hell has ringed the horizon. Flames leap from hills to the north, where the Fourth is stationed. Eastwards, the buffs of hill 861 and her sisters flicker with flashes as PLF artillery spits down on the LZ. The hills seem to bristle with guns; the flashes are bunched together, on what I guess are the unsearched plateaus. Our regular patrols and sensors stretched only three klicks out from the LZ's edges, the maximum range of the skinnies' new homemade Katsunya rockets. It seems that isn't the only new weapon they've been building. The 'sweep and clear' missions the companies performed this morning have stirred up a hornet's nest.

The skinnies are hammering us from seven klicks away I think numbly. Big guns, with a range twice that of our own light 155mm pieces. The Fourth is being targeted from the south. I back-track the graceful arc of one star of death and find myself staring at mountains whose peaks are so distant I need to scroll up to maximum visual magnification to spot the tell-tale flashes. A swift request for the co-ordinates cross -referenced against the helmet chip's virtual map confirms my suspicions. The Fourth is being shelled by pieces which can reach them from twelve miles away. Safely across the border with the Free Republic.

* * *

[_Author's note: the events depicted in this story are not in any way meant to be anti-Islamic. I admit freely that I drew on my experiences of living in the Middle East and this part of the UK, which is about forty percent British Asian. There are scenic parallels with Afghanistan, but these guerrillas are NOT the Taliban! The PLF is based mostly on the FLN, the Algerian liberation movement in the 1950s and 60s. It also draws on modern day secular Palestinian militants. Yes, they are religious, but they are rather people fighting for independence who happen to be religious, rather then people fighting because of their religion. This is not a story about jihad, which in any case couldn't apply as this war is an aggressive one for independence, rather then a war in defence of their religion._]

_Imran Ahmed Hassman-al-Saloud, leader of Tujin's Panthan, Amin of the Chzack Mountains Tzenmen and a Lieutenant-General in le Front de la Liberation Populaire, stood on the plateau overlooking the camp of 'les Blancs'. He idly checked the time again on the antique stopwatch he'd worn since the day he'd become Amin on his father's death. He supposed it was time. The Nakzers of the three 2000 strong pandins had each made radio contact confirming they where in position. Malabur, the bandy-legged Menik from the plains, had sent a runner signalling his Padishar commandos had insinuated themselves within striking distance of the enemy camp._

_Les Blancs would have a nasty shock when Malabur and his Padishars run amoke through their camp he thought and he smiled, thinly. Unlike the majority of soldiers in PLF Panthans and in a 1200-strong contingent of fighters from the allied movement l'Organisation des Clans Unies, the suicide-commandos didn't care how many casualties they took. Dying was rather the point._

_He checked his watch again. The guerrillas' 'hurricane bombardment' had entered its thirty-fifth minute. The gunships and ornithopters of the enemy had been buzzing round the Winhillian batteries' positions for the last fifteen minutes duelling with the guerrillas' machine-gun nests and Katsunya rockets. Soon the high altitude bombers with their high explosive laser-guided bombs would be arriving, guided by the infrared emitting markers scattered from the ornithopters. It was then les Blancs would discover just how deep the bunkers the guns where firing from where. Les Blancs where not the only ones who could use a computer, and military ballistics where surprisingly simple when you had a three-dimensional virtual map of the entire area. Still, being caught in the open in an air raid wasn't smart._

_He raised the radio mike to his lips._

_"Galka Nidos?"_

_"Sir?"_

_"The troops are in position, Galka. Cease bombardment. Pending further orders you may begin free-fire. In the next few minutes you should begin receiving requests from the field commanders for fire support. You will comply with the best of your ability."_

_"Yes Sir. Vie La Malisa!"_

_"Vie la Malisa."_

_Snapping off the contact the Amin allowed his anxious body guards to hustle him back into the relative safety of the bunker. Behind him he heard the continual roar of the thirty-six pieces below begin to break up, as the battery commanders responded to their Galka's free-fire order. Somewhere down there three pandins would be rising to their feet, their fighters casting off the camo-cloaks, that simple space blanket coated with earth that concealed them, and surging towards the shattered trenches of the stunned enemy. Malabur and his commandos would already be fighting in the midst of the LZ._

_The Amin's stump ached, and he shut his remaining eye. Hyne willing, this would work. It had sounded madness a year ago, when the Vessel had first broached the plan of taking on les Blancs in open battle, and Imran still did not like it. It ran against centauries of Tzenman battle traditions. To place yourself openly in the way of the Galbadian fist!_

_But of course the youthful warlords that had risen in the PLF on the back of the war had been eager for it. A way to cut the war's length, by perhaps ten years! Ruthless risk-taking had brought them to power. What was one more gamble? The Amin shook his head. Youthful impatience could still undo all that he and the older chiefs in the leadership had plotted for, fought for, in the last six years. But the Vessel had sounded so sure…Hard to say no to the mortal incarnation of your chief god! And the older he got, the tighter Imran clutched the Scriptures to his heart. They were the one thing that retained any meaning for him in this jumbled, senseless world. And if the gods did not know what to do, who did?_

_"Chakka-, I mean General! Nakzer Uzman says his men are encountering stiff resistance from the enemy strong points to their east. Les Blancs have deployed a dozen SAM 0G8s there. He is requesting reinforcements and vehicle support."_

_Imran shook his head, irritated that the wanderings of old age have crept up on him unnoticed, as much as by the youthfulness of the aide standing by the radio set. Enough of that! He had his part of the battle to direct and, Hyne willing, win._

_"He is receiving artillery support?"_

_"Yes sir, 'F' and 'L' troops."_

_"Tell Nakzer Uzman his request for more men is denied. Tell him to expect the arrival of the vehicles shortly. Release Galka Nashir's jeeps. Twelve with launchers. Make the rest draw point carriers. Priority to healing magic that can revitalise his assault."_

_Imran settled on the edge of his chair and scowled at the map. He had a battle to fight._


	6. Neither Rhyme Nor Reason

The floor of the dug-out trembles as another shell crashes to earth. The first flight of our air force went by overhead fifteen minutes ago. The initial shock of the bombardment has faded now, into a kind of accepting lack of feeling. The roaring behind me eyes has faded. I hate now bluntly, with no edge. The lack of palpable success so far by our air force angers me, but dully, like the pulse of my blood behind my temples.

"What the fuck are those bastards doing to those guns out there? Piddling on them?" I say out loud, just for the hell of it.

Blue, squatted next to me and watching the stars leading up to the smoking hole that had been the doors licks her lips. She doesn't both to reply. We wait in tense silence for the next few minutes. Blue shuffles closer to me.

"Listen," she says quietly "The pattern of their fire is changing. The shells are falling beyond the trenches. At our bunkers."

"They're coming then. Using the barrage as cover until they're within charging distance. Very smart," Caster says from behind me conversationally.

"Shit," I mutter, checking the sensor monitor nervously and gripping Heartbreaker reflexively, "The screen's clear-"

CHACKA-CHACKA-CHACKA-CHACKA

Whump. Whump. Whump.

Outside the 155mm piece and our chain gun have opened fire. The roar of noise overhead almost drowns out the piercing wail tearing out of the sensor monitor. The screen is overloaded with blue dots swarming towards the graphical representation of the trench line. Red dots, much closer, are scattered along the line. For a moment I stand frozen, aghast at their proximity and numbers alone. Then the screen flickers and goes blank. The motion sensors feeding it have been hit perhaps. Whatever it is, it fills me with a desperate energy that washes away my lethargy. I have no time…. I whirl round and clutch Heartbreaker to me, lungs filling with air. The cry balloons out of me.

"Theeeey're inside the perimeterrrrr!!!!"

All over the dug-out helmets are being snatched and jammed on. Tables are overturned, clothing in neatly ordered piles falls scattered as people sweep them aside in search of buried items. Chairs lie where they fall.

Caster's Lurps are already at the assembling point at the foot of the stairs. The shock of the bombardment has numbed the ordinary grunts into immobility however. Now, we are losing crucial seconds.

Outside the fire from the 155mm's bunker has fallen ominously silent. But the sounds of battle have risen exponentially. The walls tremor to the hammering of 155mm pieces and chain guns all along our line. The whooshing sound of rocket fire, the screamed words of casting and roar of nameless explosions filter down me and mingle with the clatter of boots and armour as the Lurps storm up the steps of the dug out, Caster at their head.

I pass Blue struggling to organise her section and beat Heartbreaker frantically on the backs of my own section, now cramming into the narrow stairwell and wedging themselves into an immobile pack. Idiots. Push. Like a dam wall bursting they give way and I shoulder my way through to the leading squad.

"Get out and spread out!" I yell over my shoulder.

We spill out of the dug-out into darkness and fling ourselves up against the edge of the trench.

My vision returns, switching from black to an eerie white set against a green background, as my visor switches to low-light vision. Cautiously, stomach churning, I step up onto the firing step, gesturing the others to stay down. Spread out in front of me an army is marching, like a swarm of ants. Hundreds of armoured and robed figures, bristling with spears and tulwars, are sprinting forward group by group, each covering the other. In front of my eyes an eruption of _Fira_, _Blizzara_, _Water_ and _Sleep_ spells plaster a section of the trench lip to my left. Galbadian heads duck, forced to keep low as the razor wire in front of them turns molten and drips onto the frozen mud.

Driving through the charging mobs are also dozens of vehicles; cars, vans, jeeps- anything with a motor and four wheels is represented. And mounted on each is a spitting tongued multi-barrelled rocket launcher, with a loader and gunner hanging precariously onto their buckling, shrieking mount as it screams parallel along our lines, plastering them with fire.

The sheer size of the attack stuns me. It steals my breath away. The entire arc of the camp is lit up with white muzzle flashes as our guns engage targets I can't even see. There must be thousands of them. A whole charging file of skinnies collapses as a line of _Firas_ streak back at them from a distant stretch of the line, but it seems to my eyes that their corpses are simply swallowed up by the ocean of armoured guerrillas which simply rolls over them and sweeps onwards. All this dawning awareness has taken perhaps three seconds.

Blue's section is spilling out of the dug-out behind us. Caster's Lurps are already stepping onto the firing step, _Berserk_ spells launching into the enemy. All along the camp, grunts are spilling out into their trenches. Guns are being dragged swiftly into new positions. The camp shudders to the tread of GIM S2As, Iron Giants and SAM0 8Gs as the slumbering 'bots are powered up and loosed into action. The whole scene reminds of a nest of hornets stirred with a stick.

"Sarge," Val cries from behind me "Orders Sarge!"

"Daytripper, get their asses up on that firing step and start casting now!" I scream back down at her, struggling to get myself heard over the din of battle.

Whatever the section sees through my visor though, it galvanises them into action. They swarm onto the firing step and begin casting away furiously. I risk another glance over the lip of the trench. The first line of skinnies is just fifty yards away, and closing fast. Just our spells won't be enough to stop them. Where is our fire support? The other three bunkers are firing away along withthe rest of the company. I remember how the bunker above fell silent when the sensor monitor cut out…

With a sickening feeling I remember the red dots along the trench line- a trench that is now occupied solely by Galbadian soldiers.

The Satlink crackles to life inside my helmet.

"Sections 4, 5 and 6. This is your Lieutenant speaking. Why is bunker four not firing? I can't raise them on the Satlink. Coming over to investigate. Cover me. Merton out."

With what? The skinnies are thirty yards away now, and crawling forwards on their bellies, prodding the ground with tulwars for the mines we laid out in front of the trench. I blast one leader with a _Fira_ and finish him with a head shot from Heartbreaker. Instantly a ball of icy cold is launched towards me and I have to hurl myself back down again.

[_Tulwar: object, light, curved blade about the length of a short sword. Not unlike a scimitar, but shorter. It could both slash and stab, and was especially useful in cramped conditions such as trenches, where it required little space to wield properly._]

Behind me I hear the crunching steps of the Lieutenant's three GIM 47Ns pounding along behind us. There are shouts in Melisian as the machines are spotted. Very close. A rocket streaks over the trench, followed by others. Many others. Their detonations are followed by the much louder explosion of at least one of the 'bots. From the bunker comes more rocket fire, and then sound of metallic fists smacking through armour and bone. A current of shock runs through the grunts. Rikka lets out a small cry.

"They're behind us," she cries, looking left then right as though unsure where to run.

A picture forms in my mind. I am cool. Aware of my fear, but above it. A dozen guerrillas standing upright less then thirty yards away. All the skinnies staring at the 'bots. Surrounded by mines.

"Section up! Section, grenades now, over the top!" I rap out.

The tone of command has their limbs moving before their conscious minds have time to think. I unpin my own grenade and time the count. Next to us Caster's section has seen what we are doing as are fumbling out their own grenades.

"One, Two, _Three!_"

A good thrower can pitch thirty yards easily. All our grunts are good throwers.

Twenty grenades rain over the lip of the trench and there is the slam of detonations. The dozen or so skinnies standing are hit by half a dozen mid-air explosions that send their scarecrow bodies flying to land in brief grotesque huddled heaps- they are falling out of the pathways their comrades have cleared onto the minefield. But their cremations are lost in the roar of the remaining grenade's blasts as they each gently bounce into the explosives laid field. There is a massive simultaneous detonation as dozens of mines, set of the grenade explosions or by their weight, or by the falling bodies of the dying skinny rocketmen blow skyward. The lip of the trench is lifted up and dumped over us as the explosions ripple out in a chain reaction, spraying red hot splinters of metal in all directions.

I peer over the new edge of the trench as the blasts die away, my head ringing, my eyes dripping with irritation at the dirt in them. Everyone else has hurled themselves flat. Dozens of skinnies lie unmoving, in all directions. Most are in pieces. I see a leg lying here, a head there. Hands no longer connected to any body clasp burnt blades. The leading line of our attackers has been wiped out. There must be close to a company here.

But the minefield that was slowing the enemy is gone. The wire lies in bedraggled heaps hither and thither. The others are hauling themselves upright, gapping in shocked disbelief at the carnage spread out in front of them. But my eyes are fixed on the wall of guerrillas picking themselves up off the ground. Their officers are racing around, dragging up soldiers and pointing wildly in the direction of our ruined section of the line. The path to the trench is open and Johnny knows it.


	7. The Closing Darkness

Phew! Sorry about the long gap in posting to this local people/person. The writing went on collision course with a shed load of work, a week long work trip and two other fics. Ouch. Still, it's done now! Retreats to bunker he's built while waiting for responce... any responce?

The satlink in my helmet is crackling into life again. I ignore it as the first of the skinnies begin their charge. There seems to be something odd about this lot. Unlike the suicide squad who infiltrated the bunker behind us this lot wear the miscellaneous tribal mufti of the regular PLF fighters. But they are advancing with uncanny swiftness and discipline. Small knots of them rush forwards and throw themselves to the ground, supporting in turn the advance of their fellows with spells and rocket fire. It is as steady as it is relentless. Their injured roll themselves away from our spell blasts, denying us the opportunity to fry any rescuers. Despite the open passage they don't rush wildly forwards and try to overwhelm us with numbers.

The whine of the satlink inside my helmet has reached an unbearable high screech. It sounds like someone dragging a rake over a blackboard. I can't concentrate on the Berserk spell I'm trying to cast, and smack the 'receive' button sharply.

"BENNETT! Come in, Gods damn you! BENNE-"

"WHAT IS IT NOW?!" I roar down the link. Below the rage at his stupidity in risking my life by distracting me while I'm trying to keep a lid on this deteriorating battle is a mild surprise. I've finally lost it with my superior officer with only nine days of Time left. Well, let me get out of here alive and the bastards can court-martial me to Trabia and back.

"Soldier, don't cross me! I am in command of this platoon!" crackles across the link back to my earpiece.

My lip curls, but I moderate my tone. The idiot is letting his paranoia get in the way of thirty people's safety, his own included.

"Sir, we have the skinnies back at fifty feet and closing. I'm down to twenty-seven men, and we have no fire support. I can't coordinate and talk to you. Sir."

"Well these are your new orders Bennett. Lump it. Get your ass up here to the bunker. Bring Sergeants Pollack and Troy with you. The place is clean of skinnies now. Pass command of your sections through to your best corporal. The chain gun needs a qualified crew. That's you three, soldier. Only ones in the platoon who've had a gunnery course. Now get me some fire support for this chunk of line before I come down there and tear your godsdamned head off! Merton out."

Damn him. I glance up at the skinnies. Thirty yards now. About a minute till they swamp the trench. I turn on my heel and storm down the line, seething. But I am a Galbadian solider.

Passing her, I snatch at Daytripper's shoulder and bawl into her ear "Val! You're in charge here now! We're up to man the chain-gun. Keep the grunts fighting till we can swing her roun-"

I trail off, shock flooding my system. Now I know what was bothering me about this PLF company. For an instant I am convinced I am dreaming. This should not be, but is.

"Sarge?" asks Val uncertainly, surprised by my sudden loss of speech.

"Hyne, Val" I say.

My voice is shaking. I point at a trio of figures crawling towards the trench. Twenty-five yards. My arm trembles. It feels like lead. Daytripper's eyes follow my outstretched finger to a black leather jacketed individual, almost lost in the mob of guerrillas. Her face blanches.

"No…" she moans softly "It isn't fair! Not now. Only nine days Time…"

Her voice trails away into an inaudible mutter.

I glance behind me at the bunker and cover. The ground between the trench and the bunker is a twenty-six meter marathon, striped bare of cover. The enemy barrage bursts its shells all around the bunker, and the guerrillas' Katsunyas and spells are sweeping all across that open ground. It's lethal ground to cross. What other choice is left to us? I know that even if every grunt in the trench with me where to attack Military Commander Squall Leonheart alone, and we had the Lieutenant and his 'bots backing us, he'd still kill every single soul amongst us. And there are two other Seeds with him. I reach up to my helmet and switch on the satlink to the Fuckwit.

"Yes!"

"Sir-"

"Bennett, where the hell are you?"

A feeling of inevitability settles on me. Did I somehow know it was going to be this way? A sergeant's duty is to her section, her regiment and her country, in that order. She doesn't figure in the picture. Shitty philosophy.

I hand-signal Val in battle-pidgin while I answer him. My eyes stay fixed on the trio of figures twenty yards away. They are standing up. Charge range.

"_Daytripper, tell sergeants, flares. Everyone, interior camp. Luck._"

"Sir, we've a SeeD sighting confirmed. Twenty yards. I am evacuating the trench. We can buy you some time sir-"

"Gods sakes, Bennett. Hold on there! We're coming over. Bastards try to kill my platoon will they?"

"_SeeDs, Blue. Yah, I know. Getting the grunts out of here now. Get your ass out of here soon as our flares go. On my mark?_"

"We're running now, sir. We need covering fire from your 'bots. You must run. That's Squall Leonheart there. Command needs to know! Wish us luck."

"Bennett-"

I cut the link.

"Flares, go!"

Shhwooooshhhuuummpop!

Tendrils of pink mist float down from the sky, expanding. They will form cloud banks in a few seconds, but I no longer look. Instead I am hammering the backsides of my seven surviving section members with Heartbreaker as they clatter one by one up the trench's sole wooden trench ladder. Panicky shouts of alarm in Malisian reach me, oddly muffled.

"Qu'est-ce que c'est?!"

"Gaz!"

A smile slips across my lips. It is more of a snarl.

"Move it! Move it! Move it!" I yell.

Either side of me Blue's and Lucky Guy's sections are scrambling up the sides of the trench. Behind me I hear the guerrillas' panicky cries give way to ones of triumph. A bearded man, short spear in hand, stands at the opposite lip of our trench, shouting back our flight to his comrades. Six gun shots strike him down, but it is too late. Half-pint, my last grunt turns and sticks her hand down to me.

"Come on sarge!" she calls.

I grab her hand and am hauled bodily upwards. In front of me the ground is alight as the guerrillas rake it with rockets. A blast pitches two of Caster's grunts aside, leaving them to land brokenly on the stony earth. Ahead of me, my grunts are falling left and right. Behind, shadowy fighters are running through the fumes, spells leaping from hip levelled spears. Some fall, as the Command section blasts them back, from the shelter of the bunker.

"GET GOING!" I scream into Rikka's ear.

Hunched over together, we scramble towards cover, her leading. One step. Two steps. I catch movement out of the corner of my eye and turn. Thirty metres to my left Blue is kneeling at the lip of the trench, arms extended. My big friend is trying to lift Caster out of it. They are the last ones in there. Already PLF fighters have jumped in the trench to their right. And one is coming straight through the mist towards them.

I have frozen in mid-step. My posse is in danger. He has stepped out of the mist.

He is clad from head to toe in black. Black boots. Black gloves. Black pants, and zipped up black jacket. The white fur that loops around his jacket's neck is in shocking contrast to the rest of the outfit. A glowing blade trails loosely behind him in his gloved right hand. An eight pound butcher knife.

His brown bangs frame a narrow, oval face. Hawk-like features are stamped onto that, all planes and sharp angles. His eyes, warm brown in the pictures I have seen of him, have turned coal-black. In them, I can see an utter lack of any kind of emotion. Except…concentration?

Like a targeter locking on, my view focuses narrowly down to the little scene taking place in front of me. The battlefield retreats from view. The face-off encompasses almost all of my attention. For some reason I feel detached from this reality, like an observer. This isn't really happening. Not to me. A small part of me notes with mild surprise that I have managed to start sprinting.

Caster is kneeling by the lip of the trench. He has seen the SeeD on the far lip and his torso is twisted, arm outstretched as he tries to cast. Blue is standing behind him, aiming her gunblade straight at their enemy. Beyond the chasm of the trench, he is bending his left leg forward. His left arm rises up, palm outward. His left limbs stretch behind him, his blade still clenched in his right hand. Blue's shot flies past him as he bows his head, his bangs falling forwards. He seems almost to be pushing against some invisible barrier.

And then he disappears.

Time stops.

Now I really am just a helpless observer. In this timeless moment my pumping muscles are clamped into place. My senses still function though. He has vanished off into some extra-dimensional space. In his place, a giantess is rising seamlessly through the shattered ground. She spins vertically upwards, through ground and air, and hangs majestically over Blue and Caster, her arms outstretched to her sides. Her pose reminds me of a diver's just before they arc themselves from the board.

The Guardian Force known as Shiva is a striking sight. Tall and slender as a marble column, she hangs as a woman might in space. But the elemental's body is human only in outline. The Guardian Force is made of ice. Not only white surface ice, but deep ice. The kind found in deep caverns, or under the ice sheet. She glitters in the light, a kaleidoscope of blues and whites.

Her body's skin is not smooth though, but rough. It looks as if it had been chipped into being by a poor sculptor. Her feet are unfinished. Sharp blades of ice rise symmetrically from her arms and calves. Even her hair isn't humanlike. Twin blonde braids flow nearly the length of her body, and the rest arches weirdly behind her elfin features, the ears pointed and set far back on the head. The expression on her narrow face is deadly. She is looking down on Blue and Caster with simple distaste.

I stare up at her, gripped by dumb animal panic. If I could move, I would press myself into the ground, like some rodent trying to avoid the attention of a passing human. I forget everything: who I am, my friends, the battle… The ice elemental radiates a cold chill that pierces me to my bones. I have never felt so insignificant. I am a mortal seeing the full power of the glacier for the first time. It is a vast and patient might, which has worn down mountains.

Still wearing her expression of distaste, Shiva effortlessly raises one arm, a claw-like hand pointing at the trapped Blue and Caster. My world spins at the magical discharge that brief gesture causes. My view of Blue and Caster grows distant. They seem far below me now, two little armour-blue figures who seem to have fallen through the ground onto an ice plain the vanished GF has cast them into.

For an instant I am given a view of a sweeping field of glittering ice. Then the otherworld plain cracks. It shatters into a million shards, and the twin figures on the plain jerk and twitch as the shards fall past them and through the normal brown earth that two perfectly normal sized bodies are now sprawled brokenly across.

I am staring at their battered forms. So still in death. Frost coats their armour and covers their visors. Their faces, the little I can see of them, are pale and blue. I feel a breeze touch my cheeks, stir my hair. My helmet is off then. I fall to my knees next to them. Gently, I touch one still form. So cold. A hurricane is roaring through my mind. I cradle her head. They are dead. Dead, dead, dead…

He is walking towards me, across the frozen mud. It cracks under his boots. Come to see his handiwork. Hatred burns my heart. My mouth spasms. Feral. The hand gripping Heartbreaker clenches. I slide Blue gently off my lap. Goodbye my friend, my sister. I am standing now, going now.

The man stands in front of me. His lips are moving, mouthing meaninglessly. Leonheart is pointed at me.

"Murderer!" is torn from me.

Jumping. Heartbreaker swinging down towards him. Even as I leap I know its no use. No fucking use at all. He is side stepping. Torso twisting, Leonheart pointing. _Light_ –pain - _Blackness_.

* * *

_Squall stood panting on the battlefield, unable to believe what just happened. In his mind's eye he saw again, like an ancient film reel. The woman dashes off her helmet, showing a stricken face. She falls to her knees, clutching at one of the bodies. He leaps the trench as another flight of ornithopters roars overhead, blasting the ground abandoned by the fleeing Galbadians. She is crouched over the body as he approaches her. She has seen him. Her face…becomes animal. A snarl. She stands up with her gunblade ready. Instantly his reflexes pull him into a firing stance. He curses his subconscious. This is not what he wants._

_Squall shakes his head vigorously. He remembers calling to her to lay her weapon down. She doesn't show any sign of hearing him. Perhaps the shellfire has deafened her. He will never know. Before him she again flings the accusation in his face, leaps, sword raised. Ridiculously open for a counter-stroke, but there is a safer way, and his body is moving, again before his conscious mind quite catches up. The laser bolt takes her at the peak of her jump, passing through her body and pitching her to the side._

_Squall stands over the injured solider, blade in hand. The shot struck her in the pelvis and passed through the lower back. Twin fountains of blood gush from the holes rent in her armour. She spasms again as the Military Commander of Balamb Gardens stands over her, for once indecisive. A man who has made a career of making the tough decisions in mini-seconds now doesn't know what to do._

_"Squall!" Nida calls urgently "Ishmal says three SAM 08Gs headed their way. They need help."_

_Squall starts away. Below him the woman stirs. Her eyes flicker briefly open and meet his startled glance. There is pain in that gaze, and a plea. Squall hesitates as he wrestles with the unspoken request._

_"Commander!"_

_The tone is pleading him to hurry now. On the battlefield life and death decisions have to be taken quickly. All his life Squall has had to make the tough choices. It was what he was created for. He waits only a few more seconds, until the soldier's eyes have closed again. Leonheart's blade flashes once in the light as it sweeps down._

[Author's note; the tale continues in the next fiction, Storm in the Sword Soul, the first few lines of which are published below: The man lay face down on the frozen mountainside, the snow crushed by his impact. Around him the full fury of the blizzard continued unabated. The man was thinly clad and the ice seared his skin. A lesser being would have been dead in minutes, frozen, or buried alive. But then a lesser man wouldn't have survived the plunge through the concealed crevice, nor the titantic energies that had been unleashed upon him. But he had survived.]


End file.
